Iowans should take note of the four presidential candidates who cleared their schedules to be at an abortion forum in Des Moines, Mike Huckabee told a crowd of 1,200 social conservatives on Wednesday night.

“It does not mean that candidates who don’t show up tonight are somehow squishy on the issue. I think it would be unfair to go there,” Huckabee told The Des Moines Register in an interview before the event.

As the winner of the 2008 Iowa caucuses, Huckabee said he respects the fact that candidates schedules lock in early “and you can’t always be at something just because you to be.”

But after Rick Santorum, Rick Perry, Newt Gingrich and Michele Bachmann spoke at the premier of the anti-abortion documentary “The Gift of Life” at Hoyt Sherman Place, Huckabee said “it speaks volumes that they are here.”

Santorum won by far the most enthusiastic and sustained applause.

He told an anecdote about feeling guilty that he had performed for TV cameras to deliver a speech on the Senate floor explaining his opposition to abortion during a debate in 1998 – rather than spending time with his wife and newborn daughter. But a few days later, he said, his sacrifice was redeemed when he received an email saying his words had prompted a woman not to have an abortion.

The nation will see come caucus day how important respect for life is, he said.

“Ladies and gentlemen, you understand that here in Iowa. You get that the social issues are not these unique set-aside issues, no, they are central to every issue that we deal with in America.”

Santorum got more whistles, cheers and loud applause when he said “under a Santorum presidency there will be no surrender.”

Bachmann described how she the fetus she miscarried years ago in her 12th week of pregnancy “was perfect.”

“There’s nothing that God creates that isn’t perfect,” she said.

She also declared that she would be “the most pro-life president that we would ever have in our nation.”

And she would be “the first president of the United States who has willingly participated with the lord God almighty in bringing forth human life, not only once, but five times. We have five biological children,” she said.

Now under President Barack Obama, “we have the most pro-abortion president that we have ever had in our nation,” Bachmann said.

Gingrich said more and more “normal, every day people” are saying abortion is wrong, he said.

“It goes to the heart of what it means to be an American,” he said. “The whole reasoning behind Roe v. Wade is a utilitarian phony science reasoning that has collapsed under the weight of modern technology.”

Gingrich said he thinks the 14th Amendment allows Congress to define when a human being is a person. He would aggressively pursue a bill to “defining personhood as beginning at conception and you don’t need a constitutional amendment.”

Perry, the only candidate who read from a pre-written speech, said: “If there’s one thing I can leave with you it’s this: the greatest victories in the battle for life are not going to be won in the halls of government. It’s going to be won in the hearts of men. Yes, we must change the laws, but we must also change hearts and minds. That’s why this film, “The Gift of Life,” is so important to our efforts.”